Nightlife, and the neighborhoods in which it happens, are resources that need to be planned and managed, from transportation and parking to permitting and policing. And that involves comprehensive coordination between community business owners, an array of city agencies and institutions like universities.

“Like our transit planning, like how we manage special events, these economies will benefit from planning and management,” said Maya Henry, the city’s new night-time economy manager, a $65,249-a-year position created by Mayor Bill Peduto to coordinate those efforts. “My job is to bring the lens of the night-time economy to all of those places that already exist in city planning.”

English: The source of the Ohio River at “The Point” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The Allegheny River (left) and the Monongahela River (right) join to form the Ohio here. The West End Bridge crosses the Ohio in the foreground. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like a maturing adult, the Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival is moving out on its own.

“At first, there was a natural synergy,” says J. Kevin McMahon of the first three years of the festival, when it was held on a weekend with the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival. “But we found we were competing with ourselves.”

He is the president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the organization that organizes the jazz festival. He has watched the festival grow during its first three years to the point where he and other planners decided it was time to move it to its own weekend — June 20 to 22.

It has drawn enough people — jazz fans, not simply strays from the arts festival — that it deserves to be on its own, he says. It adds another exciting weekend to the city, he says, and allows employees of the Cultural Trust to concentrate on the jazz festival rather than dividing their efforts.

So, the Trust’s staff has packed the 10-day festival running June 6 to 15, at Point State Park, Downtown, with a diverse schedule of music, visual arts, dance and drama to make sure everyone has a good time.

”It has been our challenge to present a program that provides something for everyone, whether you are new to the arts or a longtime aficionado,” says Veronica Corpuz, director of festival management and special projects for the Trust and the arts festival.

A map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its neighborhoods labeled. For use primarily in the list of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After hatching on Sept. 27, the duck is ready to leave the nest.

The 40-foot rubber duck, the brainbird of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman that has been floating in the Allegheny River just off of Point State Park the past few weeks, will fly out of town at 11 p.m. Sunday, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust said this morning.

Despite petitions to keep the duck here, the trust is sticking with its initial plan to remove the bird, coinciding with the Steelers vs. Ravens game Sunday at Heinz Field. At that point, the duck will be taken to an undisclosed location, cleaned, dried and put in storage at a warehouse in the South Side.

“It came in like a lion, let’s let it go like a lamb,” said Paul Organisak, vice president of programming for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

English: The source of the Ohio River at “The Point” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The Allegheny River (left) and the Monongahela River (right) join to form the Ohio here. The West End Bridge crosses the Ohio in the foreground. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Giant Rubber Duck’s fans were not disappointed.

Those fans — gathered on the Clemente Bridge and the Riverwalk and the steps of Point State Park by twos and threes, and then dozens and hundreds — numbered in the many thousands of people all packed together and squinting downriver into the sun on Friday afternoon to await its arrival.

And then, just as the tempers of hot children and harried mothers began to fray, bored teenagers returned their attention to their smartphones and grandparents began looking for a place to sit down, a flash of graceful yellow floated into view from around a bend in the river.

“There it is!” “Look, there it is!” “It’s here!” people shouted, nudging their friends and pointing downstream. And then, laughing and cheering and clapping and capturing videos on their phones, they watched entranced as the 40-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide rubber duck and its placid smile drew closer.

A sound-art tour about gun violence in Garfield, a poetry manuscript about white American identity and lessons with a master glass artist represent a few of the projects to be funded by $220,000 in grants from the Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Foundation.

The second funding cycle of “Investing in Professional Artists” will support the work of 12 artists and three organizations in areas ranging from musical composition and playwriting to drawing and dance. Individual artists will receive $8,000 to $10,000, while organizations will get $35,000 each.

The grants support artists working toward a finished project, according to Germaine Williams, senior program officer for arts and culture at The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Whether you’re paddling to a floating platform for a mind-elevating experience or scratching your head over the meaning of a painted white Mustang with corn rows in place of racing stripes, you’re doing just what the organizers of the Dollar BankThree Rivers Arts Festival hope you’ll do.

The 54th annual festival begins at noon Friday and continues through June 16 Downtown. Admission is free to the 100 visual and performing events and activities that will bring in more than 500 artists to 20 venues including four stages.

New this year will be a half dozen artworks with the primary purpose to engage, perhaps puzzle, and inspire discussion. Generally referred to as “public art,” these outdoor, often large and ambitious projects will extend from the middle of the Allegheny River by Point State Park to the walls of Tito Way in the Cultural District, near the “Cell Phone Disco.”

There are two ways of thinking about art, said, who became this year’s festival director as a part of her earlier appointment to Pittsburgh Cultural Trust director of festival management and special projects.

A map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its neighborhoods labeled. For use primarily in the list of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Golden Triangle‘s biggest outdoor party starts Friday with a big exclamation point on it — the iconic, 150-foot fountain that will spring back to life after being dormant since 2009.

Repairs and upgrades to the fountain were the last and most expensive part of a $35 million renovation of Point State Park that has been years in the making. The $9.6 million fountain project included moving pumps and electrical systems to higher ground and out of a flood plain and installing a new granite ring, restored outer basin and LED lighting.

The graceful spray marks the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio, and it is both beautiful and refreshing.

You can ring in the new year at home with Ryan Seacrest — sadly, we lost Dick Clark this year — or you can join the crowd at one of the city’s most festive celebrations, Highmark First Night Pittsburgh.

It begins at 6 p.m. Monday with a Dollar Bank Children’s Fireworks Display and a performance by Adam Brock & The Soul Band on the Dollar Bank Stage at Seventh Street and Penn Avenue.

The evening concludes with a performance by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a New Orleans jazz/R&B institution since 1977, and then the Countdown to Midnight and Future of Pittsburgh Grand Finale atop Penn Avenue Place and Fifth Avenue Place.

“The transformation of Point State Park is almost complete, and with the reconstructed fountain it will once again be a jewel in our award-winning state park system,” said DCNR secretary Richard J. Allan in a statement. “After hard work and collaboration across the region, we’re happy to celebrate this major reconstruction with a public event that will showcase the renovations and the park in a stunning waterfront gathering spot.”